AAP wins it big in Ludhiana West bypoll, boost for party ahead of 2027 Punjab elections

The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday scored an emphatic victory in the Ludhiana West Assembly byelection, the polling for which was held on June 19. Party candidate Sanjeev Arora defeated his nearest rival, Bharat Bhushan Ashu of the Congress, by an impressive margin of 10,637 votes.

Arora secured 35,179 of the 90,160 votes polled, while Ashu received 24,542 votes. Jiwan Gupta of the BJP and Parupkar Singh Ghuman of the SAD got 20,323 and 8,203 votes, respectively. The byelection was necessitated by the sudden death of sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Singh Gogi in January this year.

The election was challenging for the ruling party, as both the Congress and BJP conducted spirited and aggressive campaigns. The segment was considered a Congress stronghold until 2022, when Gogi, a former Congressman who joined AAP ahead of the elections, defeated Ashu by a margin of 7,512 votes. This time, AAP retained control over the seat and improved its victory margin to 10,637 votes.

While AAP secured an impressive victory, it benefited mainly from the division of Opposition votes among the Congress, BJP and the SAD. The combined vote share of these three parties was about 62 per cent, compared to AAP’s 39 per cent.

Despite facing anti-incumbency, the ruling party staged a remarkable comeback. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, AAP had polled just 20 per cent of votes in this segment, finishing a distant third. However, in this byelection, it secured about 38 per cent of the votes and won the constituency. The party improved upon its 34 per cent vote share in 2022 to about 39 per cent. Nevertheless, byelections are often seen as advantageous for the ruling party.

For the Congress, visible fissures in the leadership were evident. State party president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, who is also the local MP, mostly stayed away due to differences with Ashu. Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa and district Congress president Sanjeev Talwar were also absent from campaigning, which did not go unnoticed.

The BJP’s candidature of Jiwan Gupta was announced quite late, leading to speculation. Despite this, he managed to secure 20,323 votes. The SAD, against all odds, achieved a respectable tally, with its candidate Ghuman polling over 8,000 votes.

Punjab